iOS

Jailbreak

Cydia

It seems that iOS is getting the full-screen application treatment this week, as new jailbreak tweaks are now coming out to force all applications into full-screen mode similarly to the way we can invoke full-screen applications in OS X Mountain Lion for Mac. Yesterday we saw a free tweak called Maximization and today we are seeing a new free jailbreak tweak dubbed Monocle by iOS developer Ryan Petrich.

Monocle takes a better approach to enabling full-screen mode in applications. Instead of forcing the user to go into the Settings application and choose the applications they want to have in full-screen mode, Monocle allows the user to just toggle the full-screen mode on demand by invoking an Activator action from within an application. The results are great-looking full-screen applications. Take a look at a few more great examples:

Notes application:

Maps application:

By default, Monocle is invoked by shaking the device while inside of an application. It works with most applications as well. You can change the Activator action to whatever you would like to use to toggle full-screen mode from applications. The tweak comes with some options to configure along with choosing the Activator action you would like to use:

Since it is imperative for some applications not to have hidden elements, you can choose which elements are hidden from applications. You can opt to hide or show the status bar, tab bar, toolbar, or navigation bar. By default, all of these are enabled so that everything is hidden. For some applications like Dropbox, you might need to see that tab bar, so you would disable that switch to see it.

Ryan Petrich also recommends that users install a second jailbreak tweak of his called Swipeback along with Monocle to improve the user experience Ė this tweak allows the user to swipe backwards when navigating through panes such as from the Settings application since Monocle hides the navigation bar by default. When you are using the two tweaks together, the end result is pretty awesome:

Also as you would expect from full-screen applications, since the Status Bar will not be visible (unless you disable the feature of hiding the Status Bar from the preferences pane), you will see the Notification Center grabber tab when pulling down from the top of the screen. You will have to pull down a second time on the tab to reveal Notification Center, which will show you your status bar with the time, battery percentage, and all that other important information:

As it sits right now, Iíd say Monocle is a great way to get full-screen application capability on your iOS device. Itís wonderful that you can toggle the feature directly from within the application itself and itís wonderful that you have the ability to choose the elements that are hidden from the applicationís interface to take advantage of the extra pixels. I would also recommend, just like Ryan, that you install Swipeback with the Monocle tweak because it works so well with Monocle and allows you to navigate through panes while the navigation bar is hidden.

To download Monocle and Swipeback, you will need to add Ryan Petrich's beta repository. To do this, open Cydia, tap on the Manage tap, tap on the Sources button, tap on the Edit button, tap on the Add button, type in the following URL, and then tap the Add Source button and wait for Cydia to load:

Unless I am doing this incorrectly, the hidden status bar, once activated by shaking from within the app, stays hidden in each app only as long as the app remains on. If you fully turn off the app (from the background), the status bar returns when you reopen the app next time. The other tweak (Max.) hides the status bar no matter whether the app is on or has been turned off. I guess it just depends on whether you want all your apps to have no status bar each time you open them, or whether you want to choose to hide the status bar for some apps as you go.

Unless I am doing this incorrectly, the hidden status bar, once activated by shaking from within the app, stays hidden in each app only as long as the app remains on. If you fully turn off the app (from the background), the status bar returns when you reopen the app next time. The other tweak (Max.) hides the status bar no matter whether the app is on or has been turned off. I guess it just depends on whether you want all your apps to have no status bar each time you open them, or whether you want to choose to hide the status bar for some apps as you go.

That's my experience too. Ideally I would want something in the middle (always full screen with a gesture for status bar). Still cool though.

After trying maximization the other day and posting on MMi about it, and then monocle later the same day I decided to go with monocle... I have been using swipenav to swipe back for some time now and it is perfect to have the back button hidden as well as the status bar... I like having activator to toggle on and off monocle... It really looks like a bigger screen without that status bar and then to have tabs and back buttons hidden as well is huge! Looks good within a conversation in Messages especially if you have a nice SMS background. Works great and I think Ryan Petrich is the man... Many of my most essential tweaks have been released by him... Thanks Bruddah Ryan!

Tried to upload a screenshot of my messages app with another tweak that hides the entry field for the keyboard... But MMi wouldnt let me upload a screenshot? Said I didn't have permission? Huh... Weird... Maybe I'm Not cool enough?